


First Contact

by Peppermint_Shamrock



Series: Hallowshots [7]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alien Character(s), Alien!Ladybug, Alien/Human Relationships, Aliens, Alternate Universe - Aliens, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, F/M, First Contact, IN SPACE!, Scientist!Adrien, ladrien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 00:40:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21170552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peppermint_Shamrock/pseuds/Peppermint_Shamrock
Summary: When humanity discovered the first signs of intelligent life other than their own, it was decided to send a small team of scientists to gather information about this alien species. Their mission was very clear and very strict – they would observe only, and keep their presence hidden from those they studied. They were absolutely not to make any sort of contact under any circumstances.So Adrien’s boss is definitely going to kill him, if the insectoid alien towering over him doesn’t do it first.





	First Contact

**Author's Note:**

> …I was _very_ tempted to call this fic "Ladrien IN SPACE" but decided to keep that to the tags and give it a real title.
> 
> Kind of stretching the limits of Halloween aesthetic with this one, but I wanted space ladrien so I wrote space ladrien.

_So this is how I die_, Adrien Agreste thought, a touch dramatically, _with my name going down in history as the biggest idiot humankind ever produced._

Perhaps he wasn’t going to die at that _precise_ moment. Although it was looking like an unfortunately approaching possibility, there always was the chance that _maybe_ the insectoid aliens towering over him might let him live. But there was no chance in _hell_ that he’d ever live if he made it back to the ship. His boss would kill him, slowly and painfully, while his colleagues watched and jeered.

And really, it’d be hard to say he didn’t deserve it, when he’d fucked up so badly. They couldn’t, _couldn’t_ fuck this up – the discovery of the first other sapient species demanded the most extreme caution. For the first time since the dawn of their history, humanity knew it wasn’t alone, and no one wanted to make enemies of their newfound neighbors by messing something up. So when the team of scientists that Adrien had been given the privilege of joining were sent to the alien planet, they were sent with the strictest of instructions: observe, only. They were to take every conceivable precaution to prevent the aliens from discovering their presence in order to observe their natural behavior. No contact, under any circumstances, until they’d gathered enough information and had been given the official go-ahead.

The crew had, of course, joked and taken playful bets on who’d be the first to break that rule and try to talk to the aliens – most had bet on Captain Kanté, their enthusiastic pilot – but no one had really, _really_ thought that any of them would be stupid enough to break the “no-contact” policy.

Except, apparently, Adrien _was_ that stupid. Not that he’d done it on purpose, of course, but he’d been careless and impulsive, and he’d fallen right into the middle of a small gathering of startled aliens.

They crowded around him curiously, and Adrien swallowed tightly as they looked as though they might start poking at him with their pincers. And those pincers looked _sharp_. Certainly sharp enough to pierce through his environmental suit.

And the aliens were _tall_, too. They’d been observing them for a while, so of course he knew what their estimated measurements were, of course – but it was one thing to have the data and another to experience it personally.

One of the aliens moved forward, bending down towards him, and Adrien scooted back as much as he dared. Another alien stepped forward in front of the other, waving them back as it peered curiously at him.

“…hi,” Adrien said, awkwardly. He knew it was useless, there was no way that the alien would be able to understand him, but he didn’t really know what else to do in this situation. He could try to be as nonthreatening as possible, but these beings had a completely separate evolution than any creature of Earth. There was no guarantee that something he considered a gesture of peace wouldn’t be taken as the exact opposite by these creatures. As much observation as they’d done, much of the aliens’ communication (and there must be communication; they were definitely a social species) remained a mystery.

In fact, he couldn’t even _really_ be sure that the alien currently peering at him was looking at him in curiosity, and not, say, _hunger_. Or anger. Or anything else that would result in something very unpleasant for Adrien.

But to his surprise, when the alien picked him up (and his yelp was _entirely_ dignified, if anyone asked), they were cautious and gentle, taking great care as though he were as delicate as a leaf.

And to be fair, the aliens probably had no idea what he was, so why wouldn’t they be cautious? _He_ was the alien, to them.

He didn’t struggle, as he was carried. He didn’t want to risk hurting one of them, and he doubted it would do much good, either. And he wasn’t sure what the protocol was for ‘getting carried by an alien’ was, but he was pretty sure ‘don’t struggle’ was a good enough guideline for the moment. They _really_ should have come up with a contingency plan for accidental discovery, but unfortunately the only one they had was _don’t_. Which was not at all helpful at the moment, and really, wasn’t it inevitable that _something_ was going to go wrong the longer they stayed here?

Or maybe he was just an idiot trying to make excuses for himself. There was a pretty compelling case for that, too.

He was carried into the aliens’ settlement, and despite the situation, Adrien couldn’t help the excitement that came from seeing the place up close. None of them had dared to get too close to the denser population; opting instead to keep to the outskirts. There was less to observe, of course, but it was less likely to get caught. Not that that had helped Adrien, in the end.

More and more aliens gathered around, and Adrien started to worry that one of them would try to pierce his environmental suit. The only thing worse than being prematurely discovered would be if he somehow spread foreign pathogens to them – and unfortunately, they just didn’t know enough yet to take the risk. That was why they wore the protective suits in the first place – while the air and environment on this planet had been determined to be safe for humans, there was always the chance that humans and aliens carried diseases that would be devastating to the other.

Adrien could deal with being an idiot and getting discovered. But he’d never forgive himself if he got these beings, the first they’d ever found, fatally ill. He had to get away before they started poking at him too much.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t in a very good position to do that at the moment.

He was, however, in a very good position to observe their new friends like never before. They were even more magnificent up close, aesthetically pleasing despite looking a lot like giant bugs. Their exoskeletons shimmered under the foreign sun, glinting with a multitude of colors and patterns that Adrien hadn’t noticed until he’d gotten this close. The one that carried him was the most striking of all, with bright red markings mixed with a deep black that contrasted sharply with his pale environmental suit. She (and Adrien was fairly confident they were a she, now that he’d taken in her shape) was a bit reminiscent of a ladybug, he thought, if ladybugs were almost twice as big as him.

They most likely see color, he surmised, even if it went against what he would assume from his knowledge of insects. Earth insects, at least, couldn’t usually see red.

Gently, Ladybug (for that seemed a convenient way to think of her) set him down. He immediately sat up, drawing into himself to minimize surface area that one of them could potentially pierce through. Some tried to approach him, but Ladybug kept them back, and what Adrien could only assume was a lively discussion followed among the crowd. He watched in fascination, taking in every aspect of their communication as it surrounded him.

Eventually, something seemed to be decided, as Ladybug approached again and scooped him up. It was a little thrilling, actually, now that he felt reassured enough that she, at least, would be gentle with him. It was nice getting carried around. Even if he didn’t exactly know where they were going.

Ladybug, it seemed, was taking him into one of what Adrien supposed were roughly equivalent to houses. The other aliens didn’t follow them inside, leaving him alone with Ladybug.

The inside of the place was cramped, even by his standards. For Ladybug it must have felt even smaller. The room itself was not that small, of course, but it was filled with all manner of things, beautiful and strange and cluttered.

Ladybug seemed very comfortable with their surroundings, and Adrien surmised that this place must be hers, or at least that she frequented it often. She pushed a few things to the side, not nearly as gentle with them as she was with him, and set him down in front of something large and shimmering. It looked almost as though it were made of millions of tiny iridescent beads that somehow transferred their color to their neighbors in swirling patterns that created an illusion of motion. Some beads, however, were markedly dark-colored, and didn’t appear to be affected by their neighbors’ colors, appearing to Adrien to form some sort of symbols that he couldn’t decipher.

Then Ladybug reached out and into the beads, brushing against them with her pincers until the symbols vanished. She then traced new symbols, and stepped back, pushing Adrien gently towards it, as though she wanted him to write something, too. She was trying to communicate with him, he realized with excitement and nervousness.

This was incredible! The aliens had a written language, and technology too. And they, or at least Ladybug (and she seemed to hold some sway), were willing to try to communicate. If this was their response to him, there was a lot of potential for the two civilizations to befriend each other.

With a hesitant hand, Adrien reached out, unsure if the beads would respond under his gloved hands. But just as they had for Ladybug, they turned dark under the pressure of his fingers, and with far less grace and skill, he drew out a greeting…

It was a frustrating and mind-numbing and thrilling process, trying to establish a baseline of symbolic language between them, but Adrien hardly noticed as the hours crept by, too absorbed in the momentous task of communicating with his fascinating companion. There’d been a few breakthroughs, at least Adrien thought there had been, but still nothing approaching the level of a normal conversation. They continued at it for hours more, Adrien ignoring his growing hunger and fatigue, and he managed to learn a few things.

He managed to gather that the reason they were in this room in particular was that Ladybug had _invented_ this bead-screen thing. Which was…that was just amazing, really. He found himself growing more and more impressed with her, and when he managed to communicate that to her, he was pleasantly rewarded with her growing _bashful_ under his praise. There was a delightful amount of compatibility between their emotional cues, it seemed, and Adrien was heartened for how much easier that would make their eventual “real” contact with them.

They might’ve continued for hours more, if Adrien’s CO₂ warning hadn’t gone off.

He startled, and so did Ladybug. After a moment, just long enough for dread to start to settle over Adrien, Ladybug turned and traced out a questioning symbol on the bead-screen.

Adrien swallowed tightly, wondering just how to go about explaining this to Ladybug. He couldn’t vent the suit without taking it off, and to do that might expose Ladybug or himself to diseases they weren’t prepared for.

Hastily, he tried to impress upon her how desperately he needed to leave, that he needed to get away, but all of his efforts only seemed to worry her more and more. He started to worry that he wasn’t going to be able to get away and back to the ship. And it would be one thing if he was just going to die, but if he died where Ladybug or the other aliens could find him, if they decided to dissect him or something, they could unknowingly unleash a plague across their settlement.

He had to get away, somehow.

Ladybug seemed to have decided that the beeping and flashing light meant that the environmental suit was harming him, as she kept making motions as though to try to take it off of him, only stopping at Adrien’s frantic protests as he waved her away. And while she wasn’t _entirely_ incorrect in that assumption, that was the last thing he wanted to happen right now, even if the thought of her insistence on undressing him sent his mind to places he was sure it wasn’t supposed to be going.

With some regret, Adrien tipped over several nearby objects, taking advantage of the distraction to escape. As he slipped out of the building and dodged around the settlement, avoiding other aliens and Ladybug’s inevitable pursuit, he hoped he remembered the way back and didn’t lead any of them to the ship itself. Although even that probably didn’t matter that much any more, now that they’d discovered _him_.

At the outskirts, he broke into a run, hoping he could both outrun the aliens, and keep it up long enough. But it wasn’t long before he began to slow and stumble, the CO₂ buildup beginning to take effect as he struggled against the heavy drowsiness that sunk into him.

When had he hit the ground?

And was that…was that someone approaching him? He hoped it was one of his colleagues…

.

.

Adrien stirred awake, blinking the heaviness away from his eyes. He took a few breaths before realizing something was off. This was not the sterile, filtered air of the ship or his environmental suit. In fact, he couldn’t feel the weight of the helmet on his head at all.

Startled by this realization, he sat up, a little too quickly. Taking a moment to recover from his dizziness, he realized with faint horror that he was back in Ladybug’s room.

And sure enough, there was Ladybug, holding the remains of his environmental suit as she hovered anxiously.

“What have you done?” Adrien demanded. It was useless to ask like this, he knew, but he was frustrated and afraid. “Don’t you know that this could hurt you? _Kill_ you?”

Ladybug flailed her pincers around in distress, dropping the suit as she leaned in close to examine him.

“Don’t!” he begged, even though it was too late. “Please…I couldn’t forgive myself if I got you sick.”

Just as agitated, Ladybug dragged over the bead-screen and hastily scrawled barely legible symbols on it, but Adrien didn’t really need to read them to know she was upset about him passing out like that. She’d probably thought he was dying. And he probably would’ve if she hadn’t taken the suit off of him.

He should be grateful, but it wasn’t worth it if the worst happened.

Adrien responded with his own symbols on the bead-screen, trying to figure out how best to impress upon her the seriousness of the situation, while simultaneously reassuring her that he’d be alright. It was a lot more difficult than it sounded, and it already sounded like a near-impossible task.

Even as he worked, he kept looking over at Ladybug, watching for any signs that she might be taking ill. Of course, there was no guarantee that any infectious agent would act quickly, so even as time passed and Ladybug seemed no worse for wear, Adrien couldn’t relax.

Reluctantly, he made the decision he perhaps should have made earlier. He hoped that his colleagues would forgive him for exposing the ship and its location to an alien, but it was the best option he had now. If he got back to the ship and explained the situation, they’d be able to work together to mitigate any potential problems he’d unintentionally caused.

Ladybug had settled now, more curious than worried as she studied the directions he had given. Then she stood straight, and once again scooped Adrien up.

He flushed. She _was_ aware he could walk, right? Not that he minded, exactly, being carried around, but her eagerness to do so had him feeling a little awkward. He wasn’t exactly sure _how_ he felt about this becoming a habit, really. He liked it, but perhaps he liked it a little too much…

Ladybug carried him all the way back to the ship, following his directions with impeccable precision. She stopped suddenly as the ship came into view, and Adrien twisted in her hold to look at her. She was staring at the ship in what Adrien could only guess was wonder.

“I have to go back now,” he said softly.

Ladybug may not have understood his words, but their meaning seemed to get through as she looked at him and gently set him down.

“Um…goodbye,” Adrien said, rubbing his neck. “I…hope we’ll see each other again. And I hope I didn’t mess things up too badly for you. If I did, well…we’ll figure it out. I’ll make sure nothing bad happens to you.”

Ladybug brought one arm/leg/pincer up to his hair, brushing against it in a gesture of tenderness. Adrien blushed even deeper, still not sure what to make of the reaction that stirred up within him, even as Ladybug lowered the limb back into a neutral position. She continued watching him, and slowly, awkwardly, Adrien turned away and walked back to the ship.

Adrien felt her gaze on him until the moment the airlock door sealed behind him, and took a deep breath.

Time to explain everything and face the consequences.

**Author's Note:**

> Check out my [Dreamwidth](https://peppermint-shamrock.dreamwidth.org/) for daily WIP excerpts and sneak peaks, or follow my [Miraculous Tumblr blog](https://ladyofcreation.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
